Let me cut right to the chase and tell you that my children are not only picky eaters, but picky eaters who are obviously engaging in an intricately planned conspiracy meant to break me into submission so they can spend their lives sustaining themselves on junk. Now you know my dirty secret, and hopefully it makes you all feel a bit better about yourself. No one is immune from the psychological torture that our children are so effortlessly able to inflict upon us at the dinner table, not even the pros.
I like food, i will admit that i was a picky child, but now i love food. Sometimes possibly too much. Cooking is not my greatest skill, i do however make some decent meals, scouring cook books for new things to try. I make effort. Do the picky eaters appreciate this?
OF COURSE THEY DON’T.
The whole trying-to-break-me thing, remember?
Do you have any idea how awful this feels? I know many of you out there relate to the struggle.
My kids have told me that I “make things they don’t like on purpose,” that they won’t try foods I make because I “cannot be trusted.” I have tried them on so many different foods. Some have been successful, however many have been given the picky eater glare.
I, like you, have read countless articles on ways to deal with picky eaters. Reading articles on how to hide vegetables, get them to eat different foods. It’s all bullshit. I’m sure you’ve come across these same pieces of advice:
Patience is key! They’ll come around eventually, just you wait!
Yeah, my kids are 5 and 9.. still waiting.
Make fruits and veggies fun by arranging them into smiley faces!
Have you ever looked at someone smiling at you and thought “Man, I’d really like to eat your face”? Kids don’t think this either.
Sneak shredded vegetables and purees into foods they already like!
Now you’ve made them hate the only foods they were willing it eat. Good job.
Recruit your kids to help in the kitchen, and they’ll be proud to eat what they made!
No. Here’s what will happen:
- You will spend twice the time it would actually spend making dinner trying to teach them how to pick the leaves off a bunch of parsley.
- They will get bored within the first two minutes and drop the parsley on the floor.
- The children will wait until you are using a sharp knife, then start running around the kitchen like feral cats. After you cut yourself you will put them in a corner with their iPad and beg for quiet.
- They will come back during the last thirty seconds to stir the parsley (that you chopped) into the dish, then proceed to tell everyone that they helped.
- As predicted they will not eat dinner because it has parsley in it.
After years of trying, I quit. I couldn’t take another family dinner spent begging and pleading – or screaming. I couldn’t bring myself to cook two separate meals every night — a necessity, since both kids refuse to eat the foods that i like. You want frozen pizza instead of the lovely stir fry i make? Fine. You want chicken nuggets and crappy food.. You got it.
They were happy, and I suppose I should have been, too. There were no longer any screaming matches that ended in tears or empty stomachs. There was barely any work to do, and few dishes to wash afterwards. I had a lot more time to sit on the couch and read magazines. So that was good.
But I was fed up. Like probably a lot of mums, every day I feel like I’m fumbling through adulthood, trying to master basic competence and praying to God that I’m not screwing everything up too badly. Every bit of me is a a mess, but the one thing I know for sure is that that if they are like me, they will grow out of my pickiness.
So, after a few months of this, I began to cook again — not because of any great a-ha moment or parenting breakthrough, but because i knew i had to.
I stopped buying snacks for my kids to fill up on. I took the attitude if they were hungry they would eat.
When i made the meas they liked i incorporated them with different foods, i attempted to try new foods again. I was told that if you try something 12 times they will like it.. Seriously i am not making certain meals that many times. So what happened.
Nothing!
I should be grateful that they are fruit fans and the amount of fruit we go for in the house is insane. They love roast dinners – a great way to get some veggies inside them. I would just like to get them to eat a variety of meals.
I have realized, that perhaps this isn’t an issue of picky eating at all but rather a battle of wills. If they can break me at the table, then it’s only a short jump to making up their own bedtimes and skipping their chores, until eventually the household descends into a hostage situation .
In the meantime, I shall not yield! I shall not lay down and die! Stand tall and proud with that fact that they are eating something and i am doing something right, but as for the institution of parenthood at large. I fight for every single one of us who have been pushed to the edge of sanity. Today we declare that we shall not live on frozen food and cheese and fruit alone!
We shall cook our food, full of care and flavor, and our children can — and will — eventually join. It may not happen today, it could be tomorrow. And, if tomorrow isn’t good for them, well… no problem. We can wait.
I can pursue this for a long time! My picky eaters will one day eat a more varied diet.
